S304 was one of the 7 steam gunboats built to the Denny & Sons design, hence the common designation Denny Steam Gunboats. They were intended to counter the S-boot threat in the channel and were the smallest RN vessels equipped with steam turbines. Initially only carrying pennant numbers, the Admiralty later realised that they were large enough to warrant names and so they were all given names beginning with “Grey” . The example I built was HMS Grey Fox.

I had two commercial plans, one from Model Shipwright (issue 87, 1994) and one by G Stone which is available on line. The Maritime Museum archive also have plans including a shell expansion which I was able to use.

The model shipwright plan in particular is very good and contains a lot of detail.

One of the key criteria with planning any scratch-build, in particular at such a relatively large scale is ensuring there is enough reference material available, drawings and photographs etc, to ensure the model can be competed with the seme level of detail throughout. 1:48th scale is particularly challenging as the level of detail is very fine (down to individual rivets) and so sourcing enough information can take a lot of work, often as much as the time spent actually building the model.

The SGB’s were 135 ft on the waterline, 23 ft 4 inches in breadth and had a draft of 3 ft 9 inches forward. Displacing 135 tons (initially) they could make 36 knots. Grey Fox was built by Yarrow and launched in September 1941, she survived the war and was sold in 1947.

They bristled with guns, of various calibres', really being armed from whatever guns were available at the time. The main armament was a HA 3inch gun of WW1 vintage, originally intended as a land-based anti-aircraft gun. The gun shield shown were only fitted to this gun when mounted in SGB's.

HMS Grey Fox saw action in the channel and was there at D day.

The following action report is taken from a thread about Grey Fox on the BMPT forum

July 10th 1942.
In a furious night encounter, off Etaples, Grey Fox and Grey Wolf engaged 6 German minesweepers. They sank 2 but a 3rd collided with Grey Fox with such force that everyone on her bridge was thrown on their faces and a huge hole was driven in her hull. Grey Fox struggled home, with her bows almost awash.

This is backed up by this first hand account of the incident

“So far as I remember the almost simultaneous result was a sharp heel to starboard as the ship turned, and a burst of gunfire from our own gunners. This was followed by what my mind registered as an explosion on the port side forward. I was thrown violently out of my seat and against the ship's side. As I picked myself up the ship slowly righted itself and I have an indelible picture on my mind of seeing sea water pouring through the open watertight door in the bulkhead between the galley flat and the wardroom passage through which spare ammunition had been passed. At that precise moment there was no one forward of that bulkhead and by good fortune, or perhaps design, the watertight door closed from forward and as I pulled it together the inrush and water pressure behind it helped to shut it making it easy to knock the clips on. We were well down by the bows and I think fear of sinking was uppermost, but our forward gunner was still firing. Some minutes later the First Lieutenant came down and between us we completed shoring up the bulkhead with timbers kept at the far end of the galley flat for that purpose. I then learned from Lieutenant Erskine-Hill that what I had thought was an explosion was the sound of the German R-Boat as it rammed itself through the ship's side into the wardroom and forward messdeck. It shortly afterwards fell away and sank, leaving a large gash in our bows ... The next couple of hours or so were considerably nerve-wracking, sitting on watch with the ship very much down by the bow and wondering, apprehensively, whether the bulkhead against which I sat would hold. The level of water on the other side could clearly be seen by the condensation line which was somewhere near shoulder high, with the deck of the wireless office awash ... We were apparently wavering sluggishly all over the place but heading slowly in the correct general direction and managed to get within sight of Newhaven under our own steam. However, we could not be trusted to keep a straight course to enter harbour unaided and "Grey Wolf" took us in tied alongside. I do not remember ever being so relieved to get off watch! Daylight revealed what a remarkable escape we had had. Lieutenant Erskine-Hill solved the problem of inspecting the damage by the simple expedient of rowing the dinghy through the hole in the ship's side!”

You can find a model of a typical mid-war R-boat in my portfolio